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Preparation of Digital Negatives

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Preparation of Digital Negatives Siderotype Workshop Notes Preparation of Digital Negatives MIKE WARE BUXTON http://www.mikeware.co.uk DERBYSHIRE [email protected] UNITED KINGDOM Alternative Photographic Processes: Digital Negative Workflow ©Mike Ware 2012 Preparation of Digital Negatives Summary and purpose Herein follows a stepwise sequence of explicit instructions for making monochrome digital photographic negatives, using a personal computer and ink-jet printer, starting from original medium format camera negatives or transparencies, or from digital picture files. The software used for this image manipulation is Photoshop CS™ (Version 8) and Epson Scan, using an iMac, running OS 10.4. No additional software or ‘latest upgrades’ are required. The files are printed out onto ceramic-coated transparency material (such as Pictorico OHP Transparency Film or PermaJet Digital Transfer Film)1 using an Epson photo-quality ink-jet printer. This provides internegatives suitably matched in ultra-violet optical density for contact printing in any of the ‘alternative’ photographic processes. This digital negative workflow differs significantly from the customary practices of others in several respects: • For calibration, 100-step-tablet negatives having intervals of 1% relative opacity, are inkjet-printed onto the film, identical in all their print parameters and materials with the actual negatives to be output.2 All the colours of printer's ink-set are used, mixed in a smooth greyscale. • The Standard Printing Exposure (SPE) is found by exposing these 100- step-tablet negatives in the process of choice with the standard printing setup, so that the clear filmbase (relative opacity of 0%) produces ‘nearly’ the maximum print density (Dmax) that the process is capable of, while offering some tonal separation in the deepest shadows (0-10%). • The correct ink density range (at UVA wavelengths) for the negative to match the exposure scale of the given process is found by adjusting the printer driver settings: trial 100-step-tablet negatives are output and test-printed at the SPE, until the 99% relative opacity step in the negative prints as ‘just white’ background of the paper chosen for the process. • Having established the 'black and white' end-points for the process, when making the negatives appropriate for analogue printing, the image levels are redistributed in Photoshop simply by the gamma slider in the Levels window, which applies a suitable 'generic curve' automatically. 1 http://www.pictorico.eu/productsshop/?no_cache=1&L=2 http://www.permajet.com/ProductGrp/PermaJet-Digital-Transfer-Negative- Film-165u The .tiff file for this 100-step-tablet may be downloaded directly from: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/47727259/100Stepneg.tif 2 Alternative Photographic Processes: Digital Negative Workflow ©Mike Ware 2012 Calibration of the equipment and materials The optical density range of the ink laid down on the film depends on: • the particular make and model of printer • the particular ink set being used • the choice of settings in the printer driver software • the film substrate used to receive the negative image If any of these are changed, it will be necessary to re-calibrate. 1) Output the digital file for the 100-step-tablet to your printer. Load the printer with the identical film that you will use for all your negatives. As a starting point, the ink density range may be approximately provided by the printer’s ‘premium photo-quality’ media settings for glossy or semi-glossy paper. The software for driving modern printers now usually includes a means of adjusting the maximum ink density; this control may be buried rather deeply in the options. Record its setting before outputting the 100-step-tablet files. Let the test negative dry and cure overnight before use, as inks have been observed to change density with time. 2) Use the standard print-making setup for your chosen process. Take care that the light source, distance, and other conditions of printing and wet-processing are maintained constant throughout. 3) Use your 100-step-tablet negative to make trial contact exposures. Increase the exposure if necessary, until you have a test print that is perceptibly overexposed. [N.B. 'Overexposure' here is judged by the analogue photographer's criterion of shadow tones beginning to 'block up' and become indistinguishable – it is NOT judged by the digital photographer's criterion of high values becoming 'blown out'.] Call the exposure for this test print, E. If you are making timed exposures to a constant light source, E is simply the duration in minutes or seconds. If you employ an exposure system with a light integrator, E will be measured in the instrument's arbitrary 'exposure units'. 4) Examine the test print carefully when it is dry. The lowest part will appear dense and ‘blocked up’ with no resolution of the sequential steps. Compare each step with the lighter one immediately above it - i.e. the one resulting from 10% less transmittance in the negative (=10% more opacity, which corresponds to an optical density difference of ca. 0.05, or one sixth of a 'stop'). Try to locate the first step, starting from the bottom, that is just perceptibly resolved in tone from the one above it; this lower step tells you the transmittance in this negative needed to produce your effective maximum print density. Call this transmittance P%. 5) Calculate the Standard Printing Exposure (SPE). Take P% of E, the exposure for the test print made in 3): SPE = E x P/100 3 Alternative Photographic Processes: Digital Negative Workflow ©Mike Ware 2012 This SPE should apply approximately for all prints made in the chosen process, with your digital negatives, provided that the light-source and other printing and processing conditions are kept the same. Note that the SPE is not sharply-defined, but can be varied slightly, because the effective maximum print density depends on how far up the shoulder of the characteristic curve of the chosen printing process it is placed. However, the higher the effective maximum density is placed, the more of the 256 image levels will need to be allocated to increasing separation in the shadow tones, so there will be fewer left for the lighter tones of the image, which compresses the contrast. Furthermore, if you seek to produce a 'maximum black' by extending the SPE excessively, the printer inks may not have sufficient UV blocking opacity to produce a 'paper base white' at all. 6) Make a contact test print of the 100-step-tablet negative at the SPE. Inspect the test print carefully, when fully dry, to find the step that appears ‘just white' - i.e. the first one that has no upper boundary and which precedes the step with the first perceptible print tone. 7) If no steps print white, adjust the printer driver settings to lay down more ink when making the negative. If several steps print white, adjust for less ink in the negative. 8) Return to Step 1) and make a new 100-step-tablet negative. Use the new settings, and re-test it through Steps 2) to 7). The ideal aim is to get 'just white' for the first step of the tablet - that having 1% transmittance or 99% opacity – but it should be satisfactory to get within 2 or 3 steps of this. Experiment carefully with your printer driver settings: change the maximum optical density of the ink (a control usually found in the "colour management" window) and note its value when you make each new test negative. Print each one in your process with the same SPE until you come close to the ideal highlight tones. Fine-tuning the negative opacities This is only necessary in case your printer driver controls do not allow you to get the first white step close to 1% transmittance or 99% opacity. If it is still significantly different from this ideal value, then it will be necessary to reset the maximum opacity of the negative file to a value equal to the opacity observed for the first white step, before you output it on transfer film, so that the negative will print the white level correctly. The Layer Opacity Slider in the layers palette provides a convenient means of making this fine adjustment. All the other opacity values will then be scaled proportionally. Setting the Layer Opacity to less than 100% makes the tonal separation a bit coarser in principle, because the tonal scale of the image will be resolved across fewer than the full 256 levels. If the printer driver settings result in a white value close to 100%, it’s unlikely the eye will notice this, so this adjustment in the following Workflow should be no more than ‘fine-tuning’. 4 Alternative Photographic Processes: Digital Negative Workflow ©Mike Ware 2012 Use of the 'gamma slider' for applying tonal correction curves There usually is a need to redistribute the levels of a digital image file before it can be rendered as a negative useable for analogue printing. If this is not done, a print made with the SPE will usually appear too dark in overall tonality, even though the black and white end-points print correctly. In effect, what is needed here is an approximate transformation of the linear scale of Relative Opacity %, used for digital files, into the logarithmic scale of Optical Density that is necessary for a negative to yield a visually acceptable print by any analogue photographic process having a typical characteristic response. If we are prepared to accept an approximate transformation, it becomes unnecessary to use experimentally-derived curves, with all their burdensome and usually rather inaccurate measuring of many experimental points, because essentially the same result comes from re-setting one simple parameter in Photoshop, as follows. This parameter is the middle slider in the Levels Histogram window, which controls the gamma (or contrast) value shown in the central box, and which always has a default value of 1.0 when the window is opened.
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